“I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public,” his profile explains, noting that he is a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Snowden, who had racked up just over 76,000 followers within half an hour of his Twitter debut, is following just one other Twitter account – @NSAGov.

Establishing a Twitter presence looks set to maintain the high profile of the former NSA contractor, who lives in Moscow. Russia granted Snowden asylumafter he leaked U.S. secrets to the media in 2013.